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"Just a movie?! You don't understand. This isn't 'Plans 1 through 8 from Outer Space.' This is 'Plan 9,' this is the one that worked. The worst movie ever made!" - Jerry Seinfeld, Episode 206: "The Chinese Restaurant"

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Over half a century has passed since "The Worst Movie Ever Made" crashed on our planet, and if we put it under the atomic microscope today, it leads us to a startling new conclusion: It's not THAT bad! Sure, it's no master piece, but compare it to other notorious abominations. It's not "Manos, Hands of Fate" bad. It's not "Horror of the Blood Monsters" bad. It's not "Samurai Cop" bad. What lifts "Plan 9" above this pack of cinematic shame is what it really is, is WEIRD! It's a bi-polar reflection of it's idiosyncratic creator, the man, the myth, the legend...Edward Davis Wood Jr. It's a paranoid rant from a brain screaming down a steep hill with no brakes. Revelations of flying saucers and Government Conspiracies (at the height of the feel good years of the Eisenhower era, no less!), issued by characters on the fringe of uptight 1950's American society, laid down from the pulpit of a cardboard graveyard. Perhaps, ultimately, as this film journeys into the next 50 years of its existence, into an age of cynicism, corruption, and disillusion, we can actually take a lesson from old Criswell: let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. "God help us in the future..."

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Over half a century has passed since "The Worst Movie Ever Made" crashed on our planet, and if we put it under the atomic microscope today, it leads us to a startling new conclusion: It's not THAT bad! Sure, it's no master piece, but compare it to other notorious abominations. It's not "Manos, Hands of Fate" bad. It's not "Horror of the Blood Monsters" bad. It's not "Samurai Cop" bad. What lifts "Plan 9" above this pack of cinematic shame is what it really is, is WEIRD! It's a bi-polar reflection of it's idiosyncratic creator, the man, the myth, the legend...Edward Davis Wood Jr. It's a paranoid rant from a brain screaming down a steep hill with no brakes. Revelations of flying saucers and Government Conspiracies (at the height of the feel good years of the Eisenhower era, no less!), issued by characters on the fringe of uptight 1950's American society, laid down from the pulpit of a cardboard graveyard. Perhaps, ultimately, as this film journeys into the next 50 years of its existence, into an age of cynicism, corruption, and disillusion, we can actually take a lesson from old Criswell: let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. "God help us in the future..."

At its core, there is a movie here. Ed Wood definitely tried to make a good movie, maybe even a great one. It's pretty well accepted that he did not succeed, however. But the intention gives PLAN 9 a heart and a genuine quality that is lacking in an era of intentionally "bad" bad movies. (Turn on Syfy for proof.) It's my guess that is why it endures.

(For an added bonus, check out the trailer for a peek at an attempt to re-edit PLAN 9 as a modern thriller/disaster movie.)

Ed Wood could of made a decent film if he was given even a modest budget for one film, but that never happened, and we get gems like Plan 9. Yes, I said it is a gem. The definition of So Bad It Is Good films.

Truly the intergalactic emperor, great grandaddy, patron saint, and Omnipotent Creator of every bad movie you'll ever see. Ed Wood's 'Plan 9' is sooooo bad. But it crosses that thin threshold from awkward and forgettable into so (unintentionally?) bad that you'll be laughing out of your couch. Everything in this movie will get you: the acting, the plot, the special effects (do silver discs on string count as special effects?), the script, the camerawork, the sets, the props, the editing. There is not a scene you will escape without a grin on your face. Before you say to yourself, "it can't be that bad...Bela Lugosi's in it - and he's the villain!" - this is a film that features Lugosi in it for about a grand total of two scenes, thirty seconds of screentime, and no dialogue. Lugosi died soon after the beginning of shooting, and was replaced by Ed Wood's wife's dentist, who looks nothing like Lugosi, and basically covers his face with a cape for the rest of the film (I swear to you I'm not joking). This is the king of schlock, and you will love it.